Première bloodshot mangroves. starved reeds of Philip Przybylo, winner Tera de Marez Oyens-award 2024

 

On September 13th 2025, the prize composition of Polish-Canadian composer Philip Przybyło has been premiered. Philip is the winner of the Tera de Marez Oyens composition award in 2024 (a commission for a new work) and wrote the piece Bloodshot Mangroves. Starved Reeds for two bass clarinets and electronics. The piece was performed by bass clarinettists Fie Schouten and Chris Watt, who gave an inspired rendition during the Basklarinet Festijn, a part of the Gaudeamus Music Festival at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht.

Przybyło manages to elicit beautiful sounds from the bass clarinet, combined with 6 previous recorded bass clarinets, all pre-recorded by Fie Schouten. It was an extraordinary experience to hear these pre-recordings merge with the two live instruments. His microtonal approach, with a lush use of multi phonics, creates an atmospheric environment of sounds, sometimes threatening, but in a next moment more mysterious. This work piques one's curiosity and makes us look forward to future works by this young composer.

 

Philip Przybylo wins Tera de Marez Oyens Award 2024 with Meduza

In the award ceremony, the chair of the award committee applauded the original tailored score, handwritten, still very legible and maybe because, being handwritten, a very personal communication with the players. It shows a clear concept and original use of the strings. The composer creates an exciting sound universe, combining acoustic and electronic sounds.

Meduza for low string trio, live electronics, and tape was performed in a beautiful form specially adapted for this occasion by Antek Cholewinski on cello with tape. The composer explained his composition as follows: “The piece Meduza blends industrial noise music with a traditional instrumental concert setting. It focuses on open string harmonics across 12 spectrally-tuned strings, using bows as "exciters" to create resonances between the instruments. The strings are amplified via contact microphones, with sound manipulated live through a mixer, producing fragile feedback loops that are constantly on the edge of chaos. The score is written to prioritize physical gestures over precise pitches, allowing the musicians to play more intuitively.  The title Meduza (Polish for jellyfish) reflects the amorphous, pulsating quality of the music, where the musicians act as parts of a single, flexible organism. The piece has two contrasting movements: the first, Choralvorspiel, is loud and abrasive, while the second, Ombre, incorporates fragments of a French baroque aria over a drone derived from the first movement's noise.” 

Philip Przybyło is a Polish-Canadian composer and producer born in 2000. After studying in Montreal, he moved to Amsterdam for his composition degrees at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. His orchestral works, Sonnet and Penta-Concertino, were performed in Montreal, and his ensemble pieces Ameba, W Klepsydrze, and Meduza premiered in Europe. Recently, he collaborated on a multimedia project, Ekloga - Jest Biel - Ekloga (2024), based on Polish poetry. Philip also produces electronic music under various aliases and co-founded the experimental label Anekumena Tapes, performing across venues in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Warsaw.

The Tera de Marez Oyens foundation was founded in 1998 to encourage composers of contemporary music and to foster the public interest in the musical heritage of composer Tera de Marez Oyens (1932-1996). Since 2009 the Tera de Marez Oyens awards objective is to support recently graduated composition talents. The reward (€2.000) enables the composer to write a new short work that will be premiered in the 2025 Gaudeamus Festival. Former award winners were Rocco Havelaar (2000), Calliope Tsoupaki (2002), Natalia Dominguez Rangel (2009), Christiaan Richter (2011), Georgia Nicolaou en Jan Kuhr (shared second prize in 2016), Remy Alexander (2018) and Soheil Shayesteh (2021). Archief

The 2024 award committee of the Tera de Marez Oyens Prize, chaired by David de Marez Oyens: Fie Schouten (bass clarinetist, artistic director, teacher), Coen Stuit (conductor, artistic director, teacher), Aspasia Nasopoulou (composer, artistic director, curator, teacher) en Jonas Bisquert (composer, programmer, community artist, teacher).

 

Four compositions nominated for the Tera de Marez Oyens Prize 2024 

During the Gaudeamus Festival 2024 in Utrecht, the Tera de Marez Oyens Prize will be awarded. This prize is dedicated to stimulating recent Dutch graduates in composition and bridging the gap between education and professional practice. The prize consists of a sum of €2,000, earmarked for a new commission for a short composition for a professional ensemble. 

Nominated are the compositions of: (in alphabetical order) 

 Gijs van der Heijden, Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag

 Katherine Ching-Fang Teng, Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag

 Maarten Bauer,  Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag

 Philip Przybylo, Conservatorium van Amsterdam

These works will be performed during the lunch concert on September 8, 2024 of the Gaudeamus Festival in TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, after which the prize winner will be announced. 

Jury of the Tera de Marez Oyens Prize 2024: Fie Schouten (bass clarinetist, artistic director, teacher), Coen Stuit (conductor, artistic director, teacher), Aspasia Nasopoulou (composer, artistic director, curator, teacher) and Jonas Bisquert (composer, programmer, community artist, teacher) Chairman: David de Marez Oyens 

We are pleased to announce a call for scores for the

2024 Tera de Marez Oyens Award

The aim 

This award is dedicated to stimulating recently graduated composition talent in the Netherlands and bridging the gap between education and professional practice. The reward of €2,000 enables the composer to write a new short composition for a professional ensemble, to be performed during the next Gaudeamus Festival.

Criteria

We are looking for a work (a graduation project or other composition project realized during or shortly after the conservatory studies) that distinguishes itself by quality of composition and score, originality, and feasibility and engages the audience in a story, in its commitment, or atmosphere. There are no restrictions as to musical genre; pieces with electronics or performance elements may also compete for the award.

Who can compete?

All students who completed a BA or MA program at one of the Dutch conservatories in the academic year 2021/22, 2022/23, or 2023/24 and are residents of the Netherlands can compete for the award.

How to participate ? Click here

***

Soheil Shayesteh wins Tera de Marez Oyens Award 2021 with žhâ

In the award ceremony of the nomination concert during the Gaudeamus Festival, Friday 10 september, the chair of the award committee applauded the directness of the piece, the very successful integration of live performance, electronics and visuals, and the composer's ambition and urge to innovate.

žhâ, for kamancheh, electronics and visuals received an intense performance by the composer, who played the amplified kamancheh, a Persian traditional string instrument with a sound that resembles the viola, against the background of a live electronic soundscape and visuals. (coproduced with Rashin Teimouri, whose live paintings were the source material). "By the coupling of image and sound the audience is not only listening to the music but also observing the physics of the sound from an artistic point of view. The brain will try to connect what it sees to what it hears and therefore it enters to a new dimension of the sonic universe."

Soheil Shayesteh (1989) is a violinist, kamancheh player and electronic musician. He studied Industrial Engineering followed by a master's degree in "Live Electronics" at Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He explores the intersections between contemporary classical music, Persian traditional music, experimental and interactive electronics, visual arts and improvisation. He received a grant from the Amarte Foundation, to develop an electro-acoustic instrument to generate and control visuals regardless of any fixed timeline and based on the changes in the spectrum of the sound and the playing style of the player.  http://www.soheilshayesteh.com/

Other nominated pieces made a big impression on the audience as well. 

The very lightweight thread floats in the moving air’, Amba Klapwijk (Royal Conservatoire, The Hague)

Necrotic Birds, Nuno Lobo (Amsterdam Conservatoire)

Kobucha, Maurick Reuser (Fontys Music Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Tilburg

For a review (in Dutch): ben taffijns blog nieuwe noten

(photograph: Kubilay Mert Ural)

***

 

Remy Alexander wins Tera de Marez Oyens Award 2018 with Drifting

The composition Drifting,, for soprano and saxophone addresses the topic of memory loss.  

 The text follows the thought flow of a person who loses herself as a result of her deteriorating memory. Sentences are suddenly broken off and consciousness moves between the present and memory. The jury, chaired by David de Marez Oyens, appreciated the skill in handling the text and silences, the equal treatment of the two "instruments," and the beautiful performance by soprano Rianne Wilbers and saxophonist Tom Sanderman. Remy Alexander (1991) took composition lessons with Mayke Nas, Anthony Fiumara and Martijn Padding and completed his master's degree in composition at the Fontys Conservatory in Tilburg in 2017. The prize consists of a commission worth 2000 Euro to write a short piece for a professional ensemble, to be performed in the Gaudeamus Music Week 2019. The jury also granted a special honorable mention to violinist Kees Hillhorst, who gave a virtuoso world premiere of Zacharias S. Falkenberg's Solo Violin No.1.

composities/compositions – Remy Alexander – composer

 

Photo: Anne Maartje Lemereis

July, 16th 2018

Five compositions nominated for the Tera de Marez Oyens Award 2018

During the Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2018 the Tera de Marez Oyens Award 2018 will be awarded. This year's award is meant to bridge the gap between "music school" and "labour market". The award is a commission (with a value of €2.000) to write a new short composition for a professional contemporary music ensemble.

The 2018 nominations were (in alphabetical order):

Boven hoge gebouwen, Celia Swart (Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag)

Drifting, voor sopraan en sopraan saxofoon, van Remy Alexander (Fontys, Tilburg)

Solo Violin nr. 1, Zacharias Falkenberg (Artez, Arnhem)

Suite in a mental space, part 1 and 2, Sara Zamboni (Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag)

Torrents and Streams, for mixed ensemble and laptops hidden in the audience, James Alexandropoulos – McEwan, (Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag)

 

The nominated pieces were performed during the lunchtime concert at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek, on September 7th 2018

 Broadcast by The Concertzender Opname lunchconcert 7 september 2018

https://gaudeamus.nl/en/events/lunchtime-concert-2/

The jury of the TDMO award 2018: Claudia Rumondor (composer) and Vanessa Lann (composer), Fie Schouten (musician), Loes Visser (conductor) and Shane Burmania (concert programmer). Chair: David de Marez Oyens.